


Vīsum

by fidelishaereticus



Series: Wittenberg, or: Hamlet the Weird Prince of Denmark and Stealthmaster Horatio [7]
Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: (or not), Gen, M/M, Other, power and what to do with it, so this is...basically porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fidelishaereticus/pseuds/fidelishaereticus
Summary: In which Horatio realizes he has to do something. Maybe.





	Vīsum

**Author's Note:**

> vīsum - Latin participle, neuter,* "seen"

And then, quite inexplicably, the encounters—the habitual drop-ins, the accidental crossing of paths, his laughter behind every corner—came to a complete and soundless halt. Without pretext, the prince had all at once stepped back from the table, and Horatio found himself confronted with the sudden stillness of all that had hitherto been spun so deftly, so continuously beneath this master’s hand. From the shadows, Hamlet was watching, now, and waiting. It had then dawned upon Horatio that he had never fully grasped the nature of the game until that moment. It was his turn.

In one respect the fact that anything should be so directly put to him was deeply unsettling. As if his ability to deflect had suddenly been denied him, and he stood alone in the middle of an open stage, observed from every angle. He knew what was expected of him: he was supposed to want something, to act according to his will.

This, he supposed, was power.

And though a corner of him was slightly, silently excited at the prospect, it was not natural. He had never known what to do with power. He did not know what he wanted—he sometimes felt that he never had—and now he thought perhaps that what he wanted most was to disappear. He knew however that it would be to no avail: even if he could make himself unknown to all the world, the prince’s eyes would find him, seek him out—he was faster, keener, stronger. He would not chase him, no, would not hunt him down and pinion him in a corner, but he would _see_ him, and that would be enough: there was no escape.

Yet had he not wanted _this_ . . . ? If only faintly, only from a distance, _he_ had watched, _he_ had waited, he had turned tables of his own almost without noticing himself doing it, falling half-consciously into a trap which he himself had helped to lay.

And at last it had happened. He had been found; he had been seen, unmistakably. It had not been at all unsettling at the time. Indeed, it had hardly been conscious—hardly any one distinguishable occurrence—and yet there was no denying that something irrevocable had been revealed, whereupon Hamlet had seen fit to let _him_ play the next move. What had the prince read, through that glimpse? Surely he had already deduced more regarding his temperament than he, Horatio, had ever dreamed of hazarding himself, and as all deductions were it would at best be only a partial truth. Could he trust Hamlet not to _deduce,_ not to display or investigate this? He searched himself and found no impulse on which to base an action. He did not _want_ anything—not like that, not like _them_ —and then it occurred to him.

He would watch _himself._ Events would unfold, quite naturally, and he would observe them as ever he had. There need be no problem if he did not acknowledge it: it was that simple. Whatever decision he made, he need not make it with any explicit, commanding intent: he could do it after his own fashion, as with all. Resolved upon the matter, Horatio withdrew once more into a quiet abstraction, and for a moment listened only to the sound of rain tapping against his chamber window. The ghost of a thought brushed his mind, and he smiled at it, quietly, to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> *Horatio is agender, fight me.


End file.
